Reflections about a remote shortwave listeners station

The masthead of the tree on which the two antenna wires of the K9AY crossed broke at one of the last storms. The reconstruction is now done with stable material and even better antenna wires. The felled tree will also serve as a "scaffold". It is sheathed over a length of 4 m with a 75 mm HT pipe (plastic water pipe) and is thereby brought to a total height of 9,50 m. It replaces the original height of 7.50 m. This results in other lengths, namely longer wire lengths.

Running a remote station means there is always something to do.

I checked the antennas after some storms and noticed that the top of the K9AY was broken. This looks like a difficult work in a height of about 8 m. I have to fix this in the coming weeks. Another antenna - the horizontal loop - doesn't work as good as before and I have to check if there is a cable break in only 5m height. [fixed: a badly connected wire]

Another duty is the connection of the big notebook, which consumes 5-7 Ah, to the solar energy circle. Connecting this notebook is not as easy as you might think. I bought a 19 V powerbank which delivers 2,5 h additionally to the notebook accu cell. But, for timed recordings with SDR Console software, the USB connection always failes if coming from a sleep state. This problem comes with Windows 8.1 and I don't know how to solve it yet. Another problem was coming up: the powerbank creates disturbances. So I wan't be able to record with the notebook. Very sad.

The Rocketec voltage converter is meanwhile broken, which is not so bad because it delivers always some noise on some bands. So returning to accu energy might be the better way. As you know the small Tablet can only run with a limited bandwidht so I am looking foreward to have a stable connection of the notebook which can run up to 6 MHz broad recordings.

I am also looking for falling prices of SSD discs to get more space on night recordings. My Toshiba 2 TB HD denies since some time to work properly.

Further plans are to connect another 100 Ah solar battery to the system and to get another 100 Wp solar panel. Charging the batteries with 1.5 Ah in average takes a long time, so a second panel and battery may help coming better through the winter. A WiFi-connection is also in planning which could mean to run the station really remote in some time from now.

Hope to get the right stuff on the Ham Radio Fair in Friedrichshafen and to see the one or another of you guys there.

73's and cugn from Giessen!